Ithaca College

The Ithaca College Medieval and Renaissance Colloquium announces a presentation by Dan Breen, titled “Marlowe’s Edward II and the Limits of Humanist History,” on Thursday, March 23, at 12:10 to 1:45 p.m. in Business 301. 

Dan Breen is Associate Professor and Chair, Department of English, Ithaca College.  His regular courses at IC include surveys of Shakespeare and of English Renaissance literature, as well as genre courses on poetry and drama.  His publications are about late medieval and early modern writing.  He is particularly interested in the literature and historiography of the English Reformations; church history in England and in Western Europe between 1400 and 1700; Shakespeare; and the medieval chronicle. 

Current projects include an article-length essay on Marlowe's Edward II and its poetic critique of humanist historiography, from which Thursday’s lecture is taken.  Another project regards John Skelton's early poem The Bowge of Court.  Dan is also working on a book manuscript titled Making the Past: History, Historians, and Literature in Tudor England, which aims to offer an account of the gradually evolving relationship between history writing and poetry over the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and which suggests that the term “historian” begins to develop coherence as a discrete authorial identity in part because of the ways in which writers of histories are constructed and represented in poetic and “fictional” texts.  Recent publications include:

“Shakespeare and History Writing,” Literature Compass 2017; 14: e12376; wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/lic3, DOI 10.1111/lic3.12376.

“The Resurrected Corpus: History and Reform in Bale’s Kynge Johan.”  In Renaissance Retrospections: Tudor Views of the Middle Ages, ed. Sarah Kelen.  Kalamazoo (MI): Medieval Institute Publications, 2013, 16-36.

“Thomas More's History of Richard III:  Genre, Humanism, and Moral Education.” Studies in Philology 107 (2010): 465-92.

 “Laureation and Identity: Rewriting Literary History in John Skelton's Garland of Laurel.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 40 (2010): 347-71.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Michael Twomey at twomey@ithaca.edu or (607) 274-3564. We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.